Brian Taylor works during a speech therapy session to improve his stuttering. The speech disability has worsened as the Quad-City area man has grown older.
(Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

It takes Brian Taylor twice as long as most to make a simple
request such as ordering a pizza, for instance.

“I do that if I have to,” he said. “I just wouldn’t want a job
where I’d have to talk to people all the time.”

The 36-year-old has stuttered all of his life, and the speech
disability has worsened as he has aged. He was away from speech
therapy for 12 years, but he recently returned while trying to
regain control of his ability to communicate.

“Some days are better than others,” he said.

Taylor takes weekly lessons at the St. Ambrose University Rite Care
Clinic in Davenport. He knows he won’t “cure” the stuttering, but
hopes to make it less obvious during conversation.

Major motion picture

Taylor’s difficulty and that of others who stutter will be
reflected in a major Hollywood motion picture being released in
some theaters Nov. 26 — and at a later date in the Quad-Cities.
“The King’s Speech” stars Colin Firth and is already getting Oscar
buzz, well before the Academy Award nominations come out.

Firth plays King George VI, the 20th-century British monarch — and
father of Queen Elizabeth — who was plagued with a crippling
stutter until he was helped by an eccentric Australian speech
therapist, according to Entertainment Weekly’s 2010 holiday movie
preview.

The king and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were two
world leaders who stuttered, yet were able to lead public
lives.

The speech community is keeping an eye on the movie in hopes it
helps dispel some stereotypes that plague those who stutter,
according to Elisa Huff, the director and associate professor of
the St. Ambrose master’s degree program in speech-language
pathology.

“I just really like the idea of a movie on how stuttering actually
is reflected in a person’s life and quality of life,” she
said.

No psychological cause

Stuttering is not typically psychological in nature, and people who
stutter do not have a personality disorder, Huff said. It is a
communication disorder involving disruptions in a person’s
speech.

Taylor is a graduate of Augustana College in Rock Island and the
father of five children between himself and his partner, Nichole
VanDeSampel. Both are natives of Kewanee, Ill., who take college
classes in the Quad-Cities.

Taylor was laid-off 18 months ago from a Kewanee-area manufacturing
plant and now takes electronics classes at Hamilton Technical
College in Davenport. VanDeSampel is in the master’s program for
speech pathology at St. Ambrose.

More common in kids

About 3 percent of children stutter, as do 1 percent of adolescents
and adults. The challenge to therapists who deal with children is
deciding whether it is part of natural speech development or the
beginning of a chronic pattern, Huff said.

Early intervention is most effective with children, she said,
suggesting that parents or pediatricians seek evaluation by a
qualified speech-language pathologist if they become concerned
about a child.

Huff works mainly with adults such as Taylor. The biggest challenge
for older individuals is to decide what controls their lives. Is it
them? Is it the stutter?

“I try to help them get the control back,” she said.

Therapy aims to reduce the amount of stuttering through a variety
of treatment techniques. Huff tries for what she calls
“communication effectiveness” to teach the adult to stutter less
often, and to stutter less severely.

The state of the economy adds to what Huff calls “disfluency” in
the general population. Stress causes normal talkers to stutter and
stammer, not allowing words to flow smoothly.

Get tips on free stuff and fun ideas delivered weekly to your inbox

QCTimes.com Promo

Obituaries

I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site consitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.

“We don’t monitor what we say very well,” she said.

“It hurts”

Taylor uses verbal pauses and takes several short breaths when he
speaks a sentence. In therapy, he works on basic speech patterns to
improve his breathing and on related areas such as maintaining good
posture.

It hurts physically to stutter. “There are lots of times where I
feel I’m almost out of breath,” he said.

“It wears you out sometimes,” VanDeSampel agreed.

“There have been days where I wish I didn’t need to open my mouth,”
Taylor said. “I wish I could just write everything out, I just
don’t want to talk.”

But he is a determined man who vows not to let the stuttering
affect his life too much.

“Usually, if I have to do something, I know it may be hard, but
I’ll go and get it done,” he said. He hates, for example, to give
speeches, but he’s done them several times.

His children, ages 2-12 years, all are able to understand their
father when he speaks.

“They have learned tolerance and patience with this,” VanDeSampel
said, adding that the children presently have no stuttering issues
themselves.